“Wounded doing something brave.”
“Not that he’ll ever admit it, but yes, that’s what happened.”
Silence. Then Nick nodded and let go of her.
“So,” he said briskly, “the roads are as clear as they’re ever gonna get in what we laughingly refer to as early spring in Montana, and I’m heading into town for supplies. Come with me and pick up whatever we’ll need for a couple of meals, OK? I don’t mean you have to cook, but you’ll have a better idea than I will of what the men and I can toss into a pot and eat without ending up in an emergency room.”
He smiled, and Lissa revised her estimate of him as a good actor, because even she could tell that the smile was as phony as the joke.
Something had just happened. Talking about his accident—not that they’d really talked about it, but he’d mentioned it. Then she’d told him about Jake, and that had changed things. Why? She wanted to ask, but she knew she wasn’t going to get an answer.
Nick wanted to change the subject? She’d go along with it. She wasn’t going to be here that long. If something about his accident troubled him, he had every right to keep it to himself.
“OK,” she said briskly. “I’ll go with you. Heck, I’ll do better than that. I’ll make lunch and supper and, if I’m still here, tomorrow’s breakfast. I’d just as soon keep busy. Besides, after the way your guys polished off what I gave them last night, I can only imagine how they’ll react to real food.”
Nick laughed. It was an easy, honest laugh, and it made her feel better.
“Trust me, Duchess. If you’d been eating what we’ve been eating the last few weeks—”
“Spam was a feast made for a king, huh?”
“Be it ever so humble,” Nick said, and then he told her he’d scrounge up some warm stuff for her to put on, and she said that would be fine, and he looked at her and for one breathless moment she thought he was going to kiss her…
But he didn’t.
And, of course, that was just as well.
* * *
It was an interesting trip, with Brutus taking up all the bench seat between them as well as most of Lissa’s lap.
“You’re a big baby,” she told the dog softly, but she loved that Nick didn’t relegate him to the open truck bed. She knew lots of truck owners did that with their dogs, but would you do that with a child?
Actually, she’d once snarled that at a jerk back in Wilde’s Crossing.
She was glad she didn’t have to snarl it at Nick.
It took twenty minutes to get to the nearest town. Clarke’s Falls was a one-street-long collection of old buildings and storefronts. One of those was a general store, and Nick pulled to the curb in front of it.
“Stay,” he told the Newf. Brutus gave a gusty sigh as Nick stepped down from the truck.
Lissa undid her seat belt and opened her door.
“Wait for me,” Nick said. “There’s a pile of snow on your side.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Well, she probably would have been if the boots he’d found for her weren’t at least three sizes too big. They started to slide off her feet as soon as she swung o
ne leg out of the truck.
Nick was already there.
“I told you to wait,” he said, grabbing the boot before she lost it and shoving it back on her foot. “Come on. Put your arms around my neck and I’ll lift you down.”
Lissa rolled her eyes. “The man has a short memory! We did this before, Gentry. My arms, your neck. Remember what happened?”
“Trust me, Duchess. I did a lot of practicing with this damn crutch this morning. Now, come on. Put your arms around me. That’s the way. Just let me take your weight.”